


half a person

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [35]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 11:05:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6421468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie's thoughts as he's walking away from Helwater and thinks about how the ones he loves are taken from him or has to give them up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	half a person

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](http://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/141435234977/jamies-thoughts-as-hes-walking-away-from) on tumblr

Jamie slowly walked along the side of the uneven country road, mindful of the ox carts and horse-drawn coaches and random travelers all bustling past. All with somewhere to go – someone to come home to.

 

He’d been dreaming of this day for so long – the day when he could walk through the sturdy iron gates of Helwater because he chose to – not because he was asked to. The day when, for the first time in fifteen years, he could walk as a fully free man, without fear of being discovered by redcoats or being questioned about his time in prison or being tied to Helwater by his indenture.

 

So he was a free man. In the truest sense of the word – free to do whatever he pleased. No home to call his own, save the estate he had signed over to his nephew. No wife to go home to. No child to greet him when he did arrive – and the child he *did* have would never know him as his true father. John was a kind man, but he couldn’t imagine any circumstance where they would cross paths again.

 

He drew a deep breath, setting his sights on the coach stop about a half mile down the road. From there to Inverness – John had insisted on paying for his passage, and Jamie had had to swallow every ounce of his pride to accept – and from there, he’d make his way to Lallybroch.

 

But to what? What life was there now, save for a quiet life of farming and minding to tenants?

 

It was the life he’d always wanted – and had had, with Claire, for that blessed year between their return from France and that heart-shattering moment he’d received Charles Stuart’s letter.

 

And now that he had it – he didn’t want it.

 

Jamie dodged a wagon full of grain and settled his satchel – containing all his worldy possessions – tighter against his shoulder. His free hand went to his pocket, fingers running through the handful of stones he kept close to him like talismans. The round, familiar edges were like the beads of his rosary – and the same names were on his lips as when he said his prayers.

 

Murtagh. Jenny. Ian. Mam. Da. Willie. Faith. The unknown bairn whose safety he prayed for every day.

 

And the hunk of amethyst that was Claire.

 

Claire. Always, always Claire. Her lovely face a talisman against everything he had endured during their years apart.

 

He’d had to sacrifice himself to save her. Would do so again, gladly – if it meant re-living those years they had been one flesh, those years which were the only ones when he’d truly been *alive*.

 

He dropped the other stones within his pocket and caressed Claire’s stone.

 

If she was still alive, in her own time – was she in England? Was she close to here? What was she doing?

 

Was she with the bairn?

 

Was she thinking of him?

 

Did she ever think of him?

 

“Oy! Watch it!”

 

Jamie startled as a ruddy-faced farmer pushed his mule forward – the beast’s fat sides brushing against Jamie as it pulled a cart full of cabbages toward the inn that sat beside the coach stop.

 

“Sorry,” Jamie murmured, throat dry.

 

The farmer turned back at Jamie’s voice. “A Scotsman! You’re far from ‘ome, aren’t ye?”

 

Jamie swallowed against the sudden emotion in his throat. “I am,” he whispered.

 

He stopped, holding still, watching as the mule cart rattled by and came to a halt in front of the inn a few minutes later.

 

“I am,” he repeated, clutching the amethyst so hard – grabbing at his anchor - that he felt the uneven facets of the stone cutting into his skin. “That I am.”


End file.
